inkbluesky

alexis bledel with roses

Reminds me of Richard Avedon’s style, but that doesn’t offer much insight since he such a huge influence on photography and his style was so eclectic. Diane Arbus also comes to mind, but this would have probably been something that she did very early in her career.

Kids Face a New Breed of Bully

Once only found on the playground and the school bus, bullies have a new venue for tormenting fellow students: the Internet.

Now school-age bullies attack their classmates with just the click of a mouse. A new national poll said one in every three children between the ages of 12 and 17 is the victim of cyberbullying.

“Unfortunately, we are living in a culture of meanness,” said Alane Fagin, executive director of Child Abuse Prevention Services. “A culture of incivility. We are seeing a lot more of the verbal bullying,” said Alane Fagin, executive director of Child Abuse Prevention Services.

Scars More Than Physical

When Jacqui Garcia was 16, she became a victim of cyberbullying after someone posted a disturbing profile on her on the Web. One site posted this message on Jacqui: “She is mad pale and rocks bright red lipstick with long jet black hair and she scared people with her hideous face.”

The posting left Jacqui physically shaken.

“I became physically sick. I didn’t want to go to school. I was shaking,” Garcia said. “Sometimes at night I would lock my door and just cry.”

The Web page was eventually removed, but Jaqui transferred to another school.

Victims of cyberbullying are often more emotionally injured than those who are physically attacked in a schoolyard, according to experts.

“A kid wants to go online. That kid could be barraged with e-mails that constantly humiliate or harass the victim,” Fagin said. “When you see schoolyard bullying, the victim can just leave. You don’t see that with cyberbullying.”

In my cyber travels I’ll very occasionally post on a message board or comment section knowing full well of the flames that may follow. I’m a little disappointed in the low level to which some people will reach to make a counterpoint, but sticks and stones and all that. Sometimes the flamers are so petulant and incoherent that they end up inadvertantly supporting my point. This ABC story was something of a wake up call to my easy going attitude about internet antagonists. Parents could just take my attitude and tell the kids to ignore it or laugh it off, but the kind of emotional defences that adults have built up were not done so overnight. Kids can take small things like insults pretty hard. For their first six years hopefully they were surrounded by the love and support of their family and see the world through eyes not fully aware of how cruel people can be. The link at ABC offers some basic tips on dealing with playground bullies, but not what they can do about harassing e-mail and web pages. I have my own ideas, but they’re not especially professional.

Tips for Parents

1. Be proactive. Talk to your kids about what bullying is and the different forms it can take: physical, verbal and general intimidation.

2. Practice. Set up hypothetical situations with your kids. Ask them what they would do if someone demanded their lunch money.

The first one would apply I guess. Tell them what being bullied means and what cowardly weasels bullies inevitably are. Change your e-mail and only give it to trusted friends (always opt out of being listed in directories).

I think we’re years away from this, but it doesn’t hurt to start asking questions now, Will the End of Oil Be the End Of Food?

The price for the diesel fuel that runs the tractors and trucks on his 4,500-acre farm have more than tripled in the last four years, rising from 80 cents per gallon to close to $3. Fertilizer prices are also up sharply. Since synthetic fertilizers are made from natural gas, they too are impacted by higher fossil fuel prices; the cost of fertilizer has gone from about $160 per ton to $460 per ton in the last three years. Smaller, organic growers are also feeling a pinch from costlier petroleum. The price for the plastic drip irrigation tape commonly used on organic fruit and vegetable farms is up 20 percent from two years ago.

Some farmers are already trying to move away from pure petroleum based operations,

Phil Foster is one farmer who has made a commitment to reducing his farm’s reliance on fossil fuels. A prominent California organic fruit and vegetable grower who is a supplier to Whole Foods, Foster runs nearly all of the trucks and tractors on his 250-acre farm on B100-pure biodiesel. The remainder of his machines — older tractors with more finicky engines — operate on B30, which is a blend of biodiesel and conventional petroleum diesel. At the same time, Foster is trying to reduce the amount of electricity his farm pays for. Several years ago he installed a bank of solar panels to help power his packing shed, refrigerators, irrigation pumps, and sales office. He calculates that the sun provides about 20 percent of his energy